


Home Is Not Places

by cannedpeaches



Series: Home Is Not Places [1]
Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Father/Daughter Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Minor Character Death, Violence in Later Chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-05-24 19:24:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6163903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cannedpeaches/pseuds/cannedpeaches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joel has gotten used to life in Boston without his daughter, but all that is about to change.</p><p>A modern AU in which Joel and Tess are Ellie's foster parents. Now complete!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Joel said, for what felt like the millionth time. He put the glass he’d just finished washing in the dishrack and picked up a plate.

“Come on, Joel,“ Tess begged, “you’d be so good at it.” She stood at his elbow, not helping as usual. Joel had long ago given up trying to argue with her about doing the dishes, but she sure as hell wasn’t winning this debate.

“Maybe I woulda been, but not anymore,” he said, hoping his tone indicated finality.

He knew Tess better than that, though.

“Will you at least come by the office with me? Maybe get some more information?”

“For what? I’m not doin’ it, like I told you the last fifty times you asked me.” He put the now-clean plate in the dishrack with a little more force than was necessary.

Tess sighed and leaned back against the counter, crossing her arms.

“What, you gonna pout at me all night?”

“I’m thinkin’ about it,” she admitted.

Joel snorted as he rinsed his hands. Tess picked up the kitchen towel and grabbed his wrist, running it over his palms. She spoke to his knuckles as she said, “I think it would do a lot of good. You know, for the kid, but also...for you.” She put the towel back and looked up at him. The concern in her eyes was familiar, and he looked away.

“Fosterin’ is a big commitment, Tess,” he said to the floor.

“I know it is.”

“Whatever kid we get -- they’re not gonna be a normal kid, you know? That system fucks you up.”

“I _know_. One of us has to deal with those fucked-up kids on a daily basis, remember?”

“Bein’ a cop is a lot different from bein’ a parent.”

“Joel.”

His eyes met hers, and he couldn’t help flinching. She didn’t move a muscle.

“I want to do this,” she said. “I’ve thought about it a lot. I think about it every time I have to bring some kid to lockup because he didn’t have anyone to tell him to go to school, to make him do him homework or cook him dinner at night. But I’m only doing it if you’re on board, because it’s something I’m only doing with you.”

Joel had already known all this, without her saying it. He saw the lines in her face grow deeper, felt the tension in her shoulders when he pressed his fingers into them at night. This was important to her. And she was important to him. “So, now you’re guilt-trippin’ me?” he said, not without humor.

“Maybe,” she said, running her thumb over the back of one of his large hands.

He brought her hand to his mouth and brushed it with his lips. She sighed, small in her throat.

“How late is that office open?” he asked, and his heart skipped a beat when he saw how her face lit up.

 

The following evening, a social worker loaded Joel and Tess up with paper: forms, pamphlets, manuals, flyers -- all sat bundled in Tess’s lap on the drive home. Even over the sound of the truck’s motor, Joel could hear her humming, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

When they got home, Tess dumped the whole load on their coffee table, and they silently sifted through the pile, wordlessly swapping pieces of paper with each other as they finished reading. As they neared the end of it all, Joel rubbed his eyes.

“Too much?” Tess asked.

“It’s a lot,” Joel admitted.

“It is,” Tess said, putting the application form down between them.

“You still wanna do this,” Joel said. It wasn’t a question.

“I do.”

“Hm.” He rubbed his hand over his battered watch. It still kept good time, almost two decades of him banging it around construction sites nonwithstanding. Even when she was twelve, Sarah had known quality. She had been like her mother in that way.

_Sarah._

She would have been thirty this year, if she hadn’t...

Joel sighed. He jumped when he felt Tess’s hands on his, pulling his right hand away from his left wrist.

“We don’t have to,” she said, almost a whisper. She stared at the scratched watch face. “Thank you for at least thinking about it.”

“Tess --”

“I mean it,” she said, looking him in the eye now. They were dark with barely subdued yearning. “We don’t have to. I’m not doin’ it alone. And I’m not makin’ you.”

“You really givin’ up so easily?” he said. He was going for humor, but his voice cracked anyway.

“This is hard for you,” she said. “I get that. I thought maybe if you...” She waved a hand at all the colorful pieces of paper on the table. “But I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”

Joel shook his head. “No reason to be sorry. I understand why you... I know what you deal with every day. Maybe not directly, but...” He sighed again and pulled on her hands, bringing her close enough to wrap him arms around her and lean his chin on the top of her head. “I love you.”

“I love you,” she said, her voice muffled in his neck.

His heart was in his throat when he said, “Let’s do it.”

Tess jerked away from him so quickly that she whacked him in the chin. He swore, grabbing his jaw as she laughed at him.

“Are you serious? You’re not fucking with me?”

“I’m seriously reconsiderin’ whether you’re fit to be around children,” he said, still rubbing his chin. “But yeah, I’m serious. Yeah. Let’s do this.”

Tess laughed so hard tears leaked out of her eyes as she pounced on him, planting kisses all over his face.

“You’re fillin’ out the paperwork, though,” he groused, but there was no heat behind it.

“Later,” she said breathlessly, standing and tugging his hand. “I need to thank you properly first.”

“What’re you--” He stopped short when he saw the wicked gleam in her eyes. “Well, I’m never turnin’ _that_ down,” he said, allowing himself to be dragged toward their bedroom.

 

If Joel had known what a stressful month he was in for, he might never have agreed in the first place, but as it was, he _had_ agreed, and now he was stuck.

The paperwork might have been Tess’s problem, but the interview, and the home visit, _and_ the parenting class were on him, too.

“The fuck do I need a parentin’ class for?” he asked Tess one evening as she hopped up into the truck. It had been a long day for both of them. There were translucent blue circles under Tess’s eyes, and that worried him. “I said on the form that I -- that I had experience.” He swallowed.

“Might think you’re a bit rusty,” she said, more breezily than he knew she felt. “Might think you should start by getting ‘fuck’ outta your vocabulary.”

Joel mumbled a few more choice words as he pushed the truck into gear, which made Tess giggle. The sound was a balm on his irritated nerves.

Right before their last class, Joel and Tess both had a rare afternoon off. They lounged on the couch, Tess taking the sunny side, stretched out like a cat with her feet in Joel’s lap. Joel absently pressed his thumbs into the ball of her right foot, massaging it.

“You tired of all this?” Tess asked from her half-doze, breaking the silence.

“Pretty ready for it to be over, yeah,” Joel said, moving to the arch of her foot.

“You sorry I roped you into it?”

Joel smirked. “Not yet. Wait till the kid gets here, though, then ask me again.”

Tess laughed, let her head fall back against the armrest, and closed her eyes.

 

After the rush to get certified, the four months of silence that followed seemed anticlimactic.

“Maybe they decided we’re unfit after all,” Joel said one evening as Tess dusted the guest bedroom for the fifth time. 

He was aiming at a joke, but he saw Tess’s shoulders slump. Joel wanted to kick himself. Instead, he went over and put an arm around her, feeling her body as it melted into his.

“Hey, don’t worry,” he said, burying his nose in her hair. “No calls is a good thing, right? Means there isn’t a poor kid out there who needs us.”

“I know,” she said, but he wasn’t convinced.

So it was almost a relief when, just after Thanksgiving, Joel came home to Tess bouncing around the living room, her phone to her ear and Child Protective Services on the other line.

“They’ll be here in an hour,” she said as she hung up. She flew into Joel arms, hugging him.

“You know, there is somethin’ perverse about this,” he said, but he let her skip around the apartment, singing low to herself.

Joel started making dinner, although the smell of the cooking pork chops nauseated him. The knot in his stomach was large enough that he thought he might never eat again. He was so distracted, he almost forgot to put an extra cut of meat on. He hadn’t had to cook for three since his ex-wife had left him, and watching the additional pork chop sizzle in the pan made his stomach give another, dangerous lurch.

He had just set all the food to keep warm in the oven when there was a sharp knock on the door. Tess answered immediately, while Joel straggled behind, wiping his hands on the kitchen towel.

The social worker they had spoken to all those months ago stood outside the door, one hand on the shoulder of a skinny, red-headed teenage girl -- younger than Sarah, he thought, too young to be wearing the world-weary, annoyed expression she had on.

Joel gulped.

“Hi, Tess,” the social worker said, before spotting Joel and giving him a small smile. He was pretty sure he looked like death, because he was _feeling_ like death. “This is Ellie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to just set this story in modern day instead of trying to project the Joel and Sarah of 2013 to the future -- who knows what could happen in that amount of time, especially in terms of technology. It was also fun to think about what these characters would be like without the CBI pandemic.
> 
> Don't know how many chapters this will go, but I'm on a roll and will definitely finish it! Couldn't get this idea out of my head so I decided to just run with it, even if no one ever reads it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joel, Tess, and Ellie get to know each other. Awkwardness ensues.

As soon as the door closed behind the social worker, Joel broke out in a cold sweat.

The girl stood by the door, an overstuffed backpack at her feet, looking around the apartment with great curiosity, but even more trepidation.

Tess cleared her throat. “Are you hungry? Joel just finished cooking dinner.”

“Starving,” the girl said. Her voice was bright, but her mouth was pushed into what seemed to be a permanent frown. 

Joel crossed his arms, trying to hide how much he was sweating. Tess gave him a pointed look and nodded toward the kitchen. Joel jumped into action.

“Right, uh, let me make you up a plate.” He scurried out of the room.

In the kitchen, Joel put the largest of the three pork chops on a plate, then piled mashed potatoes and green beans around it. He then doled out a more usual amount of food on two additional plates for himself and Tess. As he placed a scoop of potatoes onto the second plate, Tess trailed in. She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Are you feeding an army or a little girl?” she asked him.

He grunted, then picked up the heaping plate and left Tess to bring the other two out.

Tess needn’t have worried about how much food he’d given Ellie. When he placed the plate in front of the girl, she picked at the food for a few minutes before abandoning all pretenses and shoving the food into her mouth.

“You weren’t kidding about bein’ hungry,” Tess said.

“This is really good,” the girl said, talking around a mouthful of food.

Joel winced at her manners, but he said, “You’re welcome.” This had been Sarah’s favorite meal, but he didn’t tell her that.

There was a long silence as the girl finished her dinner. Joel and Tess weren’t quite halfway through theirs. Finally, the girl cleared her throat.

“So,” she said. “Joel. Tess. Neither of you sound like you’re from around here.”

“We’re not,” Tess said. “I’m from St. Louis originally. My brother moved up here before me for work, and after our parents died, I decided to move closer to him. Joel is from Texas.”

“How’d you wind up here?” the girl asked him.

“Uh,” Joel said, a forkful of beans halfway to his mouth. He was sweating again. The girl lifted an eyebrow at him, the one that had a scar slashed through it. He rubbed at his own scar, across the bridge of his nose.

“Joel’s story is a little longer than mine,” Tess said. “Probably too long to tell your first night here.”

The girl shrugged and picked at her cuticles.

There was another long silence, punctuated by the sound of cutlery scraping against plates.

Tess cleared her throat. “So, er --”

“My mom died right after I was born,” the girl said, not even bothering to look up. “My dad up and left long before that. I was living with my mom’s best friend for a while, but then she got arrested for running a drug ring. I got put into foster care, but I kept getting into trouble, so a few years ago, they stuck me in a group home, but then I got in trouble there, too, so now I’m here.” She glanced at Tess, then at Joel. “That’s it.”

“I see,” Tess said.

Joel looked down at his half-eaten dinner, his stomach doing an uncomfortable flip-flop.

“Want to see your room?” he asked, pushing his plate away from him.

“Sure,” the girl said. “Why the fuck not.”

 

The girl brushed him off when he tried to help her with her backpack.

“I got it,” she said, pushing past him to grab it by herself.

Joel shrugged, then led her to what had been the guest bedroom.

“This is yours,” he said, turning on the light. “Not much to look at, but we can always get you...y’know, stuff to put in it.”

The girl tossed her pack on the bed, where it bounced on the hard mattress.

“Thanks,” she said. There was a hesitance in her eyes at the spareness of the room.

“There are extra towels and blankets in the closet there,” Joel pressed on, his stomach doing somersaults. “Bathroom’s next door, in between this room and ours.”

The girl nodded. “I think I’ll take a shower, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” Joel said.

“And I’m gonna need some money for the T tomorrow,” she added. Joel stared at her. “I have to go to school?” she said, arching her eyebrows at him.

“Oh,” Joel said. “Right.”

This was going to take some getting used to.

 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to just drive you?” Joel asked the girl the next morning. She was eating a bowl of cereal at the kitchen table -- or, to be more precise, was gulping the milk and dregs down, the bowl tipped up to her lips. Tess wasn’t yet off her graveyard shift. Joel had put an extra pot of coffee on for her for when she returned.

“I’ve got it,” the girl said, putting her bowl down on the table. “I’m fourteen, not stupid.”

Joel winced. He stood by the front door, the keys to his truck in hand, suddenly feeling as if he was missing something. Like he’d forgotten to put his pants on or something equally embarrassing.

The girl cringed like she’d just put her hand on a hot stove. She stood and faced him. “I appreciate it,” she said, her voice softer. “I do. But I’ll be okay. I looked on the map for the T and I know how to get to school and back here. And Tess gave me a key before she left last night.”

“You girls sure do stay up late,” Joel said, attempting a joke but failing because of the choking way the words came out.

The girl cocked her head at him. “I guess,” she said.

Joel groped for words, but finally just said, “Well, I guess I should be leavin’.”

“Okay,” the girl said, not moving.

Joel didn’t move, either, just stared at her, a foreign being in his home. Taller than Sarah had been at her age, darker and more freckled than Sarah, younger than Sarah, _not_ \--

“You okay?” she asked him.

Joel swallowed, then coughed when the sides of his dry throat stuck together. “Yeah, just... You know how to get in touch with me, if you need anythin’?”

“Got both your numbers in my phone,” the girl said. She looked amused now, the corners of her mouth quirking upward. He hadn’t seen her smile before, and this realization made him feel too large for his skin. “Don’t worry,” she said.

“Okay,” he said.

“Thank you, though,” she said. “For worrying.”

Joel dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “Don’t gotta thank me. Should be thankin’ Tess, she’s the one who thought of doin’ this.”

Joel left before he could say something else stupid to the girl. God, he was rusty at this parenting shit.

 

He spent the rest of the day dropping planks of wood on his toes and nearly nailing his hand to various walls.

“You okay, boss?” his assistant, Luis, asked him at lunch time.

Joel grunted. “Got our first foster in last night.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s he like?”

“She,” Joel corrected him. “Little rough around the edges.”

“Uh huh,” Luis said, raising an eyebrow at Joel.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Luis’s shoulders shook. “Nothing, boss.”

When Joel got home that night, Tess was stretched across the couch, reading the newspaper, and the girl was sitting at the kitchen table, doing homework. The sight was so domestic that Joel before entering, wondering if he’d stepped through the wrong door. Or the wrong dimension, for that matter.

“Hey,” Tess said, looking at him upside-down over the arm of the couch.

Joel kicked his shoes off, then went over to give her a kiss.

“You stink,” she said, swatting his arm. “Get off me.”

Joel chuckled in spite of himself. “Hi, Ellie,” he said to the girl.

She was watching them with a curious expression. “Hi,” she said.

“I’m gonna shower,” Joel said.

“Hurry up,” said Tess. “We’re hungry.”

Joel snorted. “’ _We?_ ’ Great, now I got two of you.” But as he walked out of the room, he heard the girl giggle, and he smiled, a tight thing he hadn’t known was in his chest loosening.

 

The only word Joel could use to describe the first weeks with Ellie was _weird_. It was weird coming home to both her and Tess, or, sometimes, just her. It was weird seeing her sitting at the kitchen table, eating or doing homework, just like Sarah used to when she was young, back when that table had been in their house in Texas. It was weird to be left alone at home when Tess took Ellie shopping for new clothes, and it was weird to suddenly have to answer so many questions for someone he’d just met.

Because the girl was nothing if not curious, once she got over being cagey, which was about the third day.

This was the same day she asked at dinner, “So, are you guys married?”

Joel choked on his water. Tess made a strangled nose, and her face flushed bright red.

“Not exactly,” Joel said at the same time that Tess said, “No.”

“We’re partners,” Joel said, shrugging. It was the only word they’d ever used to describe themselves, a word both he and Tess were comfortable with, considering her line of work and his history with marriage.

“Mhm,” Ellie said, looking from one to the other. When no other information appeared to be forthcoming, she then asked, “How did you guys meet?”

Joel shifted in his chair. “It’s a --”

“Long story?” Ellie finished for him.

“Yeah,” Joel muttered. “How’s school?” he asked then.

“Smooth,“ Ellie said, but still, she was happy to tell them. Once she’d gotten used to them, she was happy to tell them almost anything.

Joel learned that Ellie was fourteen, that she was a sophomore because she’d skipped third grade, that all of her classes were AP classes.

“That sounds like a lot,” Tess had said. 

Ellie, however, had shrugged: “I get bored otherwise.”

“How the -- how did you even manage to do all that homework at the group home?” Joel asked her. Tess gave him a pointed look as he swallowed the swear that had almost tumbled out of his mouth.

Ellie smirked. “That’s what I kept getting in trouble for. Kids kept stealing my books and bugging me, so I had to go after the motherfuckers.”

Tess winced, rubbing her forehead, but Joel just laughed.

“Atta girl,” he said.

Joel also learned that, even with all the homework Ellie had, she was a voracious reader. More often than not, when he came home from work, he would find Ellie and Tess reading in the living room, or Ellie hanging upside-down off her bed, a thick novel in hand.

And then, of course, there were the jokes.

One night, just before Christmas, Joel came home late. Tess was on a graveyard shift and had already left. Ellie was curled up on the couch, wrapped in a throw and drinking hot chocolate.

“What are you still doin’ up?” Joel asked as he stepped into the apartment.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Ellie said, not taking her eyes off the book she was reading. She clapped a hand over her mouth and stifled a giggle.

"Ellie?” Joel raised his eyebrows at her and waited.

Ellie cleared her throat. “‘A bicycle can't stand on its own because it is two-tired.‘“

Joel stared at her. “What.”

“‘Show me a piano falling down a mineshaft and I'll show you A-flat minor,’“ she said, gasping for breath as she laughed.

“Ellie, what are you doing?”

She held up the book she had in her hand and waggled it. “Joke book,” she said.

Joel scrubbed a hand over his face, cringing.

“‘To write with a broken pencil is pointless.‘“

Joel moved over to the couch and plunked down next to her, making her bounce on the cushion. “You know, kid, I really thought you were smarter than this,” he said, but he was holding back a smile.

“’A new type of broom came out; it’s sweeping the nation.‘“

“Jesus Christ,” Joel groaned, sitting back and clicking on the TV. “That’s awful.”

“You’re awful,” Ellie chirped. “’Atheism is a non-prophet organization.’“

“Alright.”

Ellie snickered, and Joel didn’t mind letting her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My in-laws are in town this weekend, so this one is up a little early. Hope you all are enjoying so far. I have a total of five chapters written, including the ones I've posted, so I should be all set through the rest of the month. Get ready, it's a wild ride of feels!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We can and will have Christmas in March! Because it's Christmas in this story's timeline. Enjoy copious amounts of holiday fluff, and a cliffhanger of sorts.

By Christmas, Joel had finally stopped being startled when he came home to find a teenage girl somewhere in his apartment. He’d stopped staring at his feet, at a loss for words, when he talked to her. He learned that he didn’t need to talk at all; she was happy to speak enough for both of them, and he didn’t mind listening to her as much as he might have thought for a fourteen-year-old girl.

And then, of course, there was the effect Ellie had on Tess.

Tess was twelve years younger than Joel -- too young, he’d told her more than once, to saddle herself with a sad old bastard like him. It was her youthful perseverance that finally wore him down enough to go on their first date, to start dating seriously, to move in together, and of course, to start fostering. The woman just never took “no” for an answer when once she determined she wanted something. It was why Joel had fallen in love with her, in spite of everything.

But he also knew how many things weighed on Tess: the difficulty of her work, of her past, of their own history together. Winter was the time she often looked drawn-out and pale, crumpled like a paper bag.

Ellie changed all that.

The girl’s curiosity and openness were contagious. She skipped down aisles at the grocery store, whistled while waiting in lines, gasped at all the right parts during movies. Joel often couldn’t understand her. He didn’t need a college degree to know that his own reticence and aloofness were the product of his own abusive childhood, just as Tess’s mental and physical toughness were the product of hers. How Ellie had gone through the childhood she’d had and ended up like _this_ was a complete mystery.

He was glad for it, though, when he opened his apartment door to the sound of laughter; when Tess favored him with extra affection, which she sometimes unintentionally withheld during the winter months; when he heard her sigh contentedly in bed just before drifting off into an easy sleep at night.

Joel had expected to be matched with a real problem child when he’d signed up to foster, and he’d been prepared for it. He understood that this kind of thing just came with the territory, that his job would be to provide any kid with as stable and nurturing a home as he could manage. He was prepared for all of that.

But nothing could have prepared him for Ellie.

One night, as he barricaded himself in his to wrap Christmas presents and listened to Ellie and Tess singing ABBA at the tops of their lungs, Joel smiled.

 _So far, so good_ , he thought.

 

Joel was the first person awake on Christmas morning.

Tess slept in whenever she could, and Ellie had taken to doing the same. Joel rolled out of bed, careful not to jostle Tess, and peeked out the window. True to the previous night’s weather prediction, a storm had dumped two feet of snow on Boston.

Joel sighed, longing, for a moment, for warm Austin Decembers, before he quietly opened the bedroom door and stepped out into the living room. Everything was still: the tree, the wrapped presents under it, the paper snowflakes Ellie had hung from the ceiling the week before. A knot twisted in his stomach, and he realized, in the silence, how badly he wanted this holiday to be perfect for Ellie and Tess. He and Tess had never been ones to give much of a fuss about it -- most years, they didn’t even bother to buy a tree -- so he’d forgotten how special it was, to decorate and be together for one specific reason. It was why Christmas had been Sarah’s favorite holiday.

_“I ain’t even supposed to be celebratin’ Christmas. Your grandmama would be rollin’ over in her grave.”_

_“Well, you broke the menorah last year, and_ I’m _not Jewish, so really, this is all_ your _fault.”_

_“Aw, sure. Blame your old man.”_

_“That’s the plan.”_

“Joel?”

Joel jumped and spun around, shaken from his memory. Ellie peeked around her bedroom door, smiling small.

“Merry Christmas,” she said.

“Merry Christmas,” Joel said. He shifted from foot to foot. “Are you hidin’ from me?”

Ellie wrinkled her nose. “I didn’t get you guys anything.”

Joel snorted. “We don’t care.”

“I know, I just...” She opened the door wider, wiggling her socked toes. “This is the first real Christmas I’ve had in forever, and I... Thank you. That’s all.”

Something in Joel’s chest sagged. “You don’t gotta thank us. Besides, Christmas barely got started. I could still burn the pot roast.”

Ellie laughed. “True. But I want to thank you anyway.”

“Well, at least wait for Tess to get up so you can --”

“Too late.” Tess leaned on the doorframe of her and Joel’s bedroom, her hair mussed and the tshirt she slept in slipping off her right shoulder.

Joel made a small noise in his throat and made a mental note that he should really try sleeping in for a change.

Ellie looked from Joel to Tess and back again.

“Get a room, Jesus,” she said, slamming the door to her room. Joel felt himself flush. Ellie was cackling.

He opened his mouth to say something, but Tess reached out and slipped her fingers into the waistband of his sweatpants.

“Might as well,” she whispered in his ear, pulling him toward her and shutting the door behind him.

Ellie took a very long, very loud shower.

 

After breakfast -- scrambled eggs and bacon, plates heaped high with both -- Tess pushed her chair back and sighed.

“Well, I need a walk,” she announced.

“Are you kiddin’?” Joel said. “It’s too cold out.”

“C’mon, you big baby,” Tess said, teasing. “Cold air is good for you.”

“How’s that?” Joel grumbled. “Besides, the snow’s up to _here_ ,” he added, holding his hand by his thigh.

Ellie had already made a mad dash for her room to put on some more layers. Joel knew he was fucked.

The air outside was brisk, but not so freezing cold as Joel had feared; he’d worked outside in worse weather. He waded through the snow ahead of Tess and Ellie, cutting a path where people hadn’t yet shoveled, and they followed single-file behind him.

“Is this so bad?” Tess called to him.

“You ain’t leadin’,” Joel said, shaking his head.

“Joel’s never gotten used to the snow,” Tess explained to Ellie.

“You’re actin’ like you grew up with snow,” Joel retorted.

“No, but I’m not cryin’ about it, either.”

“Hmph.”

“It’s really _pretty_ ,” Ellie offered.

“Exactly,” said Tess.

They made an arduous loop around the block; by the end of it, the lower half of Joel’s body was soaked to the bone.

“I need to go inside,” he started to say, before he was interrupted by whoops.

He turned around to find Tess and Ellie lying in the snow, waving their arms and legs through the fine power.

“What the hell?” he said.

“Snow angels!” Ellie said. “C’mon, you have to make one, too.”

“No,” Joel said.

“Pleeeeeease?” Ellie said. “It’s Christmas, Joel.”

Tess nodded along with Ellie. Both of their faces were flushed with cold. Joel sighed. Women would be his undoing.

He ambled over, then plunked down on his ass next to Tess. As he gingerly lowered himself, he muttered to Tess, “You fuckin’ owe me for this one.”

“I can hear you,” Ellie said, her voice singsong.

Joel shuddered as the back of his head touched the snow, but all the same, he extended his limbs and waved them, closing his eyes. He wondered how much Sarah might have loved doing this when she was young.

“Not bad.”

When he opened his eyes, Ellie was standing over him, hands on her hips and clumps of snow in her hair, appraising his snow angel.

“Glad it passes muster,” he said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Then he grinned, reached out, and grabbed Ellie’s arm, pulling her face-first into the snow drift with him.

“God _dammit_ ,” Ellie sputtered, pushing herself up on her arms and scrambling back onto her haunches. “You _asshole_!” Tears streamed down her face, but she was laughing.

Tess, meanwhile, guffawed on his other side. The sounds of laughter warmed him better than anything ever could.

 

Joel peeked into the oven, his phone braced between his shoulder and his cheek.

“Merry Christmas, baby brother,” he said when Tommy picked up.

“Merry Christmas, Joel,” Tommy said. In the background, Joel could hear his six-year-old niece, Sofia, shrieking. “How’s it goin’?”

“Quiet,” Joel deadpanned.

Tommy snorted. “Sure, rub it in.”

“Not my fault I got mine ready-made,” Joel said, frowning at the pot roast.

“Well, we can’t all be so lucky.”

“Not sure if ‘lucky’ is the right word.”

“What? Your girl givin’ you trouble?”

“No,” Joel said hastily, straightening and wiping his hands on a kitchen towel. “No trouble at all. She’s...” He peeked into the living room, where Tess and Ellie were curled up on the couch, still warming up from their excursion. He couldn’t help the smile that formed on his face. “She’s good.”

“That’s all you got to say about her?”

“She’s a good kid, Tommy,” Joel sighed. “Don’t know what else you want me to say about her.”

“I’d love to meet her,” Tommy said. “See what kind of hell she’s raisin’ in an old man’s house.”

“You and Maria oughta visit sometime,” Joel said. “After it stops bein’ so fuckin’ cold. I haven’t seen her and Sofia in a long time.”

“And me,” Tommy groused.

“Yeah, you’re okay, too.”

Joel could almost hear Tommy shaking his head.

He spoke to Tommy for a few more minutes, before the phone was handed to Maria and then Sofia.

“Hey, sweet pea,” Joel said to his niece. “You remember your ol’ Uncle Joel?”

“Duh,” said Sofia.

Joel laughed. “You gonna come visit me soon?”

“Yes!”

“Well, you tell your Mama and Daddy to bring you to Boston real soon, okay? Tess and I will have ice cream just for you.”

Sofia giggled. Ice cream was always their little secret.

He then walked out to the living room to hand the phone over to Tess.

“The other Millers,” Joel said as Tess took the phone from him.

He settled into the couch as Tess got up to pace while she talked.

“Who’s that?” Ellie asked, raising her eyebrows.

“My little brother,” Joel said.

“You have a brother?”

“Tommy. He lives with his wife and their baby girl in Wyoming. Got a farm out there.”

“I’ve never been to a farm.”

“Maybe we’ll take you sometime.”

“If I don’t get placed somewhere else.” Ellie’s tone was light, but Joel could hear the undercurrent of anxiety in her voice.

“What? You think we’re returnin’ you? You’re a kid, Ellie, not a shirt that don’t fit.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Ellie said, staring at her hands.

“Now why’d someone give back a nice kid like you?” Joel asked, trying to joke.

Ellie shrugged. “There were reasons.”

Joel was about to question her further, but at that moment, Tess handed him back the phone.

“Smells like dinner might be ready,” she said.

 

After dinner, it was finally time to open presents.

“You guys are sadistic, you know that?” Ellie said as they settled on the floor near the tree. “Most kids got to open their presents this morning.”

“Quit your whinin’,” Joel said, tossing a soft package at her.

“Oh, fine,” Ellie groused, but she was smiling. She tore the paper off the package, revealing a fluffy pink bathrobe. “What even is this?”

“The comfiest thing you’ll ever own,” Tess said, ripping into her own present. She gasped. “Joel! Where the fuck did you get this?” She pulled out the switchblade and snapped it open.

Joel just shrugged.

“You know these are illegal, right?”

“What’re you gonna do, Officer? Arrest me?”

Tess shook her head, closing the knife. She’d been pining for one for years, Joel knew.

“I have one of those,” Ellie said.

Both Tess and Joel’s heads whipped around to stare at the girl.

“What? It was my mom’s,” Ellie said, instinctively reaching for her back pocket. There as a bulge there Joel had somehow never noticed before.

Tess sighed. “We’re terrible.”

“Speak for yourselves,” Ellie said, watching Joel open his present. “You’re the adults here.”

Joel pulled the wrapping paper off his present, revealing a beat-up record player, and a vinyl of Hank Williams’s greatest hits. He held the sleeve carefully in his large hands, staring at it.

A silence stretched out around him. He cleared his throat.

“This is...” He slid the record out of the sleeve, staring at its shiny black grooves.

“I didn’t know you liked music,” Ellie said.

“I...” He swallowed hard, then looked up at Tess, who was clutching her knees to her chest. “Thank you,” he said to her, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek.

Ellie raised an eyebrow, but before she could ask any questions, Joel said, “Go on, kiddo. You got one more.”

Ellie pulled the last package toward her and ripped the paper off. Anything she might have asked was immediately forgotten as she ran her fingers over the glossy, hardback cover of _The Complete Savage Starlight_.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Figure I’d give you brain cells a break from that joke book,” Joel said.

Ellie flipped the book open, scanning the pages of the comic.

“So fucking cool,” she whispered. “How’d you even think to get me this?”

Joel thought of the stacks of comics Sarah kept hidden under her bed, which she read when Joel thought she was doing homework.

He frowned. “Dunno. Cover looked interestin’.”

“Hmm,” Ellie said. Her eyes were glued to the pages. She flipped back to the front and started reading.

Outside, the wind howled, picking up the snow that had fallen the previous night and blowing it around so hard, it looked like it had started blizzarding again.

 

A few hours later, the three of them drifted to their bedrooms, ready for sleep. Joel changed as the wind rattled at the windows.

“Well, I thought that was pretty successful,” Tess said, pulling back the covers on the bed.

“Shush, woman,” Joel said as he settled in next to her. “Ain’t anybody ever tell you that’s how you jinx things?”

Tess rolled her eyes and kissed him. “Merry Christmas, Texas.”

“Merry Christmas, baby.”

“I’m sorry,” she said then, scooting herself closer to him.

“What for?”

“I didn’t meant to upset you.”

“Didn’t upset me none,” Joel lied, wrapping an arm around her and kissing the top of her head. “Thank you. Where did you even find that shit?”

“I’ve got my ways,” Tess said, stifling a yawn.

Joel didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep until he woke to the sound of voices. He sat up in bed, his ears straining over the sound of the wind.

“-- need to leave.”

“Not happy to see me?”

“Riley --”

“What is it?” Tess asked, her voice thick with sleep.

“Do you hear that?” Joel asked her.

“Hear what?”

“Ellie.”

“Ellie’s asleep, Joel. You should be, too.”

“Sounds like she’s talkin’ to someone.”

“Like who? The wall?”

“No, Tess, but _someone_.”

“Joel. Come back to bed.”

Joel tried listening for Ellie’s voice again, but all he heard was the rattling of the windows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably one of the longer chapters in this story. In my real life, all my original fiction is depressing as hell, but apparently in my fandom life I like just writing buckets and buckets of fluff.
> 
> Also, consider this your periodic reminder that Joel is canonically [Jewish](http://images.pushsquare.com/news/2013/12/naughty_dog_2014_marks_a_special_period_in_our_history/attachment/0/original.jpg).


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie makes a discovery about Joel's past. Angst ensues.

Tess and Joel were sitting on the couch the following morning, each nursing large mugs of coffee and exchanging sections of the _Globe_ , when Ellie emerged from her bedroom, pale and disheveled. There were purple circles under her large green eyes.

“Mornin’, sleepyhead,” Tess said, not looking up.

“You okay?” Joel said, a small sliver of panic sailing through his chest. “You look like hell.”

“Thanks,” Ellie snapped, going into the bathroom and slamming the door.

Joel looked at Tess, who shrugged. Joel opened his mouth to say something, but Tess cut him off.

“You know, I hate it when people chalk it up to this, but sometimes it really _is_ just hormones,” she said.

“Sure,” Joel said, taking a large mouthful of the hot coffee and turning back to the sports section. He read the same paragraph three times.

Tess wormed her cold toes under the soles of his feet and he sighed, shifting the couch’s throw to cover her legs.

Ellie’s bad mood persisted for the rest of the day, then the rest of the week. Temperatures stayed stubbornly below freezing, and with school not in session, Ellie had no incentive to leave the house. The air seemed to grow thick with her angst.

“Why don’t you go hang out with your friends?” Joel asked her one afternoon, halfway between Christmas and New Year’s. He’d started by giving her a wide berth, hoping that some space would do her good, but the situation was getting too ridiculous for even his taciturn nature to handle. Business had been slow that week -- no one needed work done on their houses during the holidays -- and so Joel had more or less been trapped in the apartment with Ellie.

Ellie snarled at him and retreated to her bedroom, slamming the door.

Later, Joel poked Tess in the ribs as she prepared for bed.

“Ow,” she said. “What?”

“You jinxed it,” Joel said.

“Could be wo --”

“Don’t you dare.”

On New Year’s Eve, Joel got an emergency call to fix a leaky roof.

“Should only be gone a few hours,” Joel told Ellie as he pulled his boots on. Tess had already gone to work.

“Okay,” Ellie said. She was on the couch, idly paging through _Savage Starlight_.

Joel hesitated in the entryway. “Ellie?”

“What?”

“Be careful, okay?”

“Aren’t I always?”

Joel wanted to say something more, but he was already running late, so he left, his insides tangled with unease.

“I hate this crap,” he muttered as he started the truck.

 

There was something brutally comforting about hammering shingles.

Joel could do it on autopilot: pulling up the old shingle, throwing it off the roof, laying down the new piece of wood, lining up the nails, and hammering them home. It was mindless, and feeling the impact of the hammer on the roof was soothing. As his mind drifted blank, he could feel the tension melting out of his chest.

He was done in record time, even without Luis’s help, since his assistant was on vacation.

The anxiety he’d felt all week didn’t return until he’d turned the truck back onto his block, the force of what awaited him at home coming at him all at once.

It had only been a month, but he cared about the girl. He didn’t like seeing her this upset, but he wasn’t about to ask her about it. She wasn’t really _his_ kid, after all, and more than that, she wasn’t little anymore.

He ran a hand through his graying hair as he walked up to his apartment. Sarah had always told him what was on her mind. Even when she got to college, she called him at least once a week. He knew almost everything about her, a side-effect of having raised her by himself when he was so young. He hadn’t just been her dad; he’d been her best friend. He thought back to his own childhood, how neither of his parents had taken much of an interest in him or Tommy because they were too busy fighting with each other.

There were no in-between examples for Joel. He’d just have to make this thing up as he went along.

His internal struggle, however, was completely derailed when he opened the apartment door and heard a loud crash.

“Ellie?” he called. He shut the door and rushed over to the source of the sound: his own bedroom. “Ellie are you --”

The word died in his throat. Ellie was scrambling to her feet, red-faced and wide-eyed, a number of boxes from his closet arrayed around her on the floor. The source of the crash was obvious: His old guitar lay on its side from where it had fallen off an overstuffed shelf.

Something white-hot that Joel couldn’t put a name to coursed through him. He stared at his things on the ground -- photographs, cards, letters -- and then at Ellie’s guilty face.

“Ellie,” he said. His voice was steady, but underneath that was a rage that would have scared even him, had he stopped to think about it. “What. The _fuck_. Do you think you’re doin’.”

Ellie, frozen to the spot, didn’t seem to be able to say anything.

He marched over to her and snatched at the object in her hand: an old photograph of himself and Sarah, on the day she’d won her little league soccer tournament, both of them grinning widely. He glared down at Ellie, every part of him shaking.

“What do you think gives you the _right_ \--”

Ellie’s eyes flashed and narrowed as she cut him off. “You never tell me anything about yourself!”

Joel took a step back, as if she’d slapped him. “ _Excuse me?_ ”

“I’ve fucking lived here for a whole month and I don’t know the first thing about you, Joel! Tess’ll tell me anything I want to know about her past, but with you -- you -- you didn’t even mention to me that you had a brother until Christmas. That’s kind of an important detail, don’t you think? And the fucking record player, what the hell was that all about?” She jabbed a finger at the photo in his hand. “And all these pictures? Joel, is this your _daughter_?”

“Ellie.” Joel had never felt so in danger of flying apart since -- since -- “You are treadin’ on some _mighty_ thin ice.”

Ellie made a noise halfway between a laugh and a scream. “You have a fucking _daughter_ and you won’t even talk about her -- don’t even have her picture up anywhere -- how _fucked up_ is that? I’m here because fucking CPS thought I’d be _safe_ here, that you’d take care of me, but you have a --”

“She’s dead.”

Ellie stared at him. “What?”

“She died ten years ago. She was murdered by some punk in Southie tryin’a rob her.” He moved toward her again, and she took a step back, hitting the closet door. “You fuckin’ happy now? That enough _information_ for ya?”

And then he threw the photo on the floor, turned on his heel, and walked back out of the apartment.

 

Six hours, innumerable drinks, and twelve missed calls from Tess later, Joel stumbled back into the apartment, tripping over his own shoes and falling sideways into a wall.

“Shit,” Joel hissed as his shoulder jammed. He threw the door closed behind him.

In a moment, Tess was on him.

“Where the _fuck_ were you?” she demanded. She ran her hands through her hair, pulling a little. “You know what, that doesn’t matter right now. Joel, Ellie’s missing.”

Her face swam in his vision. “Wha?” he said, slumping back against the wall.

“Ellie. Is. Missing,” Tess repeated. “She was gone when I got home, she wasn’t back for dinner, and she isn’t answering her phone. You two have that in common,” she snapped.

“Can’ ... Can’ we jus’ call the p’lice?” Joel slurred. Something important was happening. He tried to focus.

“I _am_ the police, you moron!” Tess slapped him, and he heard the crack before the sting jostled his nerves.

He held his hand to his face. “Ow, Jesus!” he said. Her outlines finally clicked into place, and he stood up straighter. _Ellie_.

Tess pulled on his arm. “C’mon, you big idiot. We’re fillin’ you up with water, then we’re looking for her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought about making this chapter longer, but let's be real, the centerpiece of the thing is the big fight, so I figured I'd just leave it so as not to impact any of its punch.
> 
> Also, if you're following along in this timeline, Joel is 47 (I estimate that in the game, he's 49). Tess is 35. Ellie, of course, is 14. For people who like details like that. :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was the worst day of Joel's life.

"You had enough to eat at dinner? Wanna get some ice cream?”

“I’m full, Daddy.”

“Good. Don’t want you to go hungry, eatin’ that shitty cafeteria food.”

“I eat fine, don’t worry.”

“I worry anyway.”

Joel has an arm slung around his daughter, holding her close as they stroll through the dark, deserted streets. His stomach rumbles; he doesn’t understand why Sarah chose the little vegan cafe for dinner when he’s perfectly happy to buy her a nice steak, but he doesn’t complain. No point in arguing when he’s just visiting for the weekend.

She’s lost weight, though. She’s always been a slight little thing -- skinny, skinny, skinny, just like Stacey -- but at least when she was playing soccer, she had some muscle on her frame. Now she’s just willowy, and it worries him. But no, he won’t argue with her tonight.

The restaurant was in an old building in Southie, populated by tattooed girls with long, dark hair, men with beanies and thick-rimmed glasses. Joel fidgeted all through dinner, feeling out of place with his fresh-faced blonde girl and his own threadbare clothing. Not to mention the weird looks they’ve gotten ever since Sarah hit puberty. It annoys him, that this is what he looks like to people.

He’s glad to be outside, even if the air is filled with the chill of fall. It cools his lungs, soothes his frayed nerves.

And Sarah does, too. He misses her when she’s away at school, although this year has been easier. It almost makes him feel guilty, that he’s used to it, but Sarah’s a sophomore now. She’s almost grown up.

“So, don’t think I forgot,” Sarah says now, shaking him from his thoughts.

“Forgot what?”

Sarah laughs. “Your birthday.” She pauses there in the middle of the street to fish around in her large purse. She produces a long box and holds it out for him.

“What’s this?” he asks.

“Open it.”

Inside, he finds a leather watch strap, just visible by the light of the streetlamps.

“I noticed your watch was gettin’ worn out,” she says. “I’ll never understand how that thing is still workin’.”

Joel runs thick fingers over the soft, buttery brown leather.

“Do you like it?” Sarah asks.

“I do but -- honey, you should be spendin’ your money on books, or --”

“Daddy,” she says sternly. “Don’t worry about me. I’m serious. Just say ‘thank you.’“

His lips curl into a smile. “Thank you, baby girl.” He kisses her on the top of the head, then steers her back into their stroll.

Joel curls the strap up and stuffs it in his pocket. He’s so busy concentrating that he doesn’t hear the man come up behind them until he has a knife to Sarah’s throat.

“What else you got in there, girl?” he man pants. He’s too close to her. His lips at her ear, the knife shining at her neck, a hand easing her handbag off her shoulder. Joel’s brain is a white blank.

“C’mon now,” Joel says, and the man digs the knife into Sarah’s neck, drawing blood. She whimpers, and the sound cuts right through Joel. Joel holds up his hands. “We don’t want no trouble.”

The man watches him as he takes Sarah’s bag and backs away from them both. “Thanks,” he says, waving it in the air, taunting.

Sarah is shaking, hiccuping to keep from crying. A slice of red runs across her pale throat.

His baby girl.

Joel doesn’t think before he lunges at the man, aiming for her purse. There’s a quick movement and then flashes of light punctuated by pops. Joel misses the man by a few feet and hits the ground, coming down hard on his hands, but not before he cracks his face against the concrete. His nose burns. The purse is lying on the sidewalk in front of him, the mugger high-tailing it down the street.

Joel sits back, patting himself down. Miraculously, he isn’t hurt -- the asshole must have missed as Joel fell.

But then, behind him, he hears it.

Sobs, high and pained, like a dog whining.

A dog dying.

He whirls around, and Sarah is sinking to her knees, the front of her shirt blooming red.

Joel’s entire world stops.

“No,” he says, crawling over to her. “No, no, no, no! Baby, stay with me, okay? Stay with me, baby, I’m right here.”

He gathers her up in his arms, fumbles in his pocket to find his phone, but she’s clinging on to his arms for dear life and she’s crying and _why is there so much blood?_

“I’m here, baby, c’mon. You’re gonna be okay,” Joel says, hearing nothing but her cries and the pounding of his heart in his ears. “I’m gonna call 911, okay? Just stay with me.”

He pries his arm out of her grip and reaches for his phone, pulls it out to dial. His thumb leaves blots of red on the screen.

As the line rings, he looks back at Sarah.

_No._

She’s too quiet. Her eyes are blank. Her lips are parted, but no sound comes out. Her hands are limp.

“Sarah?” he says.

His ears are ringing.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Sarah, baby.”

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

“Baby, please don’t do this to me.” He takes her shoulders and shakes her. Her head lolls on her neck, and another drop of blood seeps from her knife wound.

“Please, Sarah, please don’t ... Oh, god, please ...”

 

When the police arrive, their sirens and flashing lights barely register with Joel. His whole world is in his arms.

His whole world is gone.

“Sir?”

He can’t look away from her eyes, blue and blank.

“Sir.”

A hand on his shoulder. A woman’s voice.

A dam breaks inside him, and he sobs incoherently, sobs like he hasn’t since he was a child.

The hand on his shoulder hesitates, then rubs small, stilted circles on his back.

 

Later, the woman tells him her name is Tess Callahan, and she will be the officer investigating his case.

 

Later, he sells his house in Austin and rents an apartment near Fenway Park, so he can keep tabs on the investigation.

 

Later, Tess tells him that the trail on the mugger has gone cold. There’s nothing more she can do.

 

Later, he packs away all of Sarah’s pictures, all her things. His guitar, too. He won’t need any of it anymore.

 

Later, he’ll find the leather strap and take his watch in to be fixed. He’ll keep it running for as long as he can.

 

Later, he decides to stay. To get his contracting license. To get on with it.

 

Later, he runs into Tess at a coffee shop while he orders his usual dark roast. Her eyes are soft, her face a canvas of frown lines. She gives him her number.

 

Later, when he doesn’t call, she does. She still has his phone number on file. And she keeps calling, even when he doesn’t pick up. Eventually, he answers.

 

Later, when Tess moves in and sees the boxes and boxes of his old things in the closet, she says nothing, just holds him close.

 

But right now, he has nothing. His whole world is dead. And it’s all his fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flashback chapter! We'll return to our main story next week. Thanks for sticking around! :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joel faces his fears as he and Tess find Ellie in a sticky situation.

The headache pressed against the back of Joel’s eyes, hammering through his skull. He raced after Tess as she ran through the darkened streets, calling Ellie’s name. The cold wind whipped at his face, stinging it worse than even Tess’s slap had.

Oh yes, he was sober now.

If only he hadn’t stormed out. If only he hadn’t yelled at her. If only he’d told her about Sarah in the first place. If only he weren’t so _fucked up_ , if only he’d been stronger, been able to get over what had happened, been able to move on -- he had so many good things in his life, _so many_ \-- oh, if only he’d just let that mugger go, if only he hadn’t let Sarah stop on the street that night, if only he’d argued with her about the restaurant, or not visited it all, or made her go to UT like he’d wanted, if only --

If only he weren’t so fucking _broken_ , if only he’d been good enough to take care of a good kid like Ellie.

Fuck.

Tess had stopped short at the next intersection, her hands on her knees as she leaned over, panting, trying to catch her breath. Joel jogged up along side her, breath tearing in and out of his lungs, his stomach roiling. God, he wanted to throw up. He wanted to lie on the cold ground. He wanted to never get up again.

His head hurt so much.

Tess straightened and grabbed his wrist, as if she were trying to steady herself. She swayed on her feet, her face flushed and her eyes huge. He had never seen Tess scared before. 

“Where the fuck could she be?” Tess asked, her voice cracking. 

Joel was thinking as fast as his hungover brain would let him.

“We’ll find her,” he said, pressing his lips together tight.

“What happened?” Tess asked abruptly. In the shadows cast by the streetlights, she looked feral, haunted.

Joel fought the urge to brush her off. That hadn’t been doing him much good lately.

“I think you can guess some of it,” he said, thinking of the mess on their bedroom floor. “She got curious. And I came home early from work. I wasn’t --” He scrubbed his hands over his face and through his beard. “Fuck, you know what happens to me when I get angry...”

Her eyes were shining, but her jaw was set. “So you drove her away.”

“Christ, Tess, I didn’t mean to!” he shouted, turning and walking a few steps away from her.

His back was still to her when she said, “When are you gonna stop pushing people away, huh? Not just Ellie. Me, too.” He felt her hand on his elbow, wrenching her around to face him. He tried to look away from her, but she grabbed his chin and looked right into his face. She never flinched, his Tess.

Her eyes looked black in the darkness. “Tess,” he said. A plea, a whine, a sob.

“What are you so afraid of?” she demanded, her fingers gripping him tighter. “I’m not fucking goin’ anywhere --”

Joel jerked away from her hand, but he didn’t break his eye contact. Something fierce flared in his chest. “That’s rich, with your line of work --”

“Is that what’s bothering you?”

“Yes -- no!” Joel threw his hands up. “I don’t fuckin’ know.” He took a step back from her. “I can’t lose you. And I -- fuck, I can’t lose her either.” His voice faded away as he said, “I can’t lose any more people, alright? Not after...”

Tess took his hand and pulled him closer, then thumped on his chest, right above his heart. Every inch of her was shaking, but her voice was steady. “You’re _not_ losin’ me. You couldn’t lose me if you tried. And Ellie -- that girl trusts us. She trusts _you_. She doesn’t want to lose you, either. You understand?”

Joel nodded blankly, his shoulders slumped. Tess shook him.

“Are you _hearin’_ me?” she said.

“Yeah,” Joel rasped. “I really fucked up this time, didn’t I?”

Tess rolled her eyes and released him. “C’mon, you big idiot. Help me think of places you’d go if you were a runaway foster kid.”

“Where can you get a bunch of liquor and bum some smokes?” Joel deadpanned, thinking back to his own misspent youth. Before Sarah, anyway.

But Tess didn’t laugh, only stared at him.

“What?” Joel asked.

She grabbed his arm and tugged. “Come with me.”

 

The shitty little park near the airport had seen better days. The balding grass was strewn with trash, old beer cans, and cigarette butts. Joel wouldn’t have been surprised to find a used needle or two in the dirt.

“What the fuck’re we doin’ here?” he asked Tess.

“Shh,” she said, flapping a hand at him. She crouched down, motioned for him to follow her lead, and approached the rusting play structure in the middle of the park. A few hundred yards from it was a small grove of trees, and in the light of the flickering streetlamps, Joel could make out movement.

“Get the fuck _off_ me!” a familiar, strained voice spat.

_Ellie._

Joel made to get up, but Tess grabbed his arm and shook her head.

“We have to do this quietly,” she said. She reached down for her belt, pulling out her gun, which she always kept with her, and the switchblade Joel had gotten her for Christmas, which she handed to him. She took a deep breath, then began to scamper her way forward, weaving in and out of the shadows. She motioned for him to move to the other side of the grove so they could flank whoever Ellie was yelling at.

As Joel neared the grove, he could see Ellie’s silhouette. She was struggling against someone taller and larger -- a man -- who had her pinned to a tree with one arm. With the other, he had a gun pointed to someone else standing close by, her back to Joel. Another girl.

Ellie wriggled under the man’s grip, and Joel saw her lower her head. The man swore, raised the gun, and brought it down with a _thump_ on Ellie’s head.

“You little _brat_ ,” the man hissed as Ellie moaned in pain.

The other girl had taken this opportunity to jump on the man’s back, a kind of sick parody of a piggy-back, but he threw her off and spun around, pointing the gun at her again. Joel watched the man flick his finger over the gun, chambering a bullet.

Joel’s mind went bank. It had stopped being able to comprehend his actions after Joel saw the man cock his gun, but even so: Joel was running, Joel was shoving the girl, a hand on her left shoulder -- she was so warm -- pushing her to the ground, landing on top of her, too hard, probably, a pop, a flash of light, a pain in his abdomen, the girl breathing hard underneath him.

Tess had bolted up from her crouched position. “Hey, asshole!” she yelled at the man, who whirled toward her. Tess sprinted the last few feet toward the man, knocking him to the ground. His gun went off again.

Joel thought his heart would stop.

But then Tess was wrestling with the man, who froze when she jammed the muzzle of her gun into his spine.

“Boston PD,” she hissed, her breath ragged. “You’re under arrest.”

As Tess rattled off the man’s rights and yanked out a pair of cuffs as Joel rolled himself off the girl, who was a little older than Ellie, her face gaunt and drawn.

“Alright?” he rasped at her.

She nodded silently.

Nearby, Ellie moaned. He ran over to her, her thin figure slumped against a tree, her eyes unfocused. As he approached her, however, she shot upright.

“Get away from me!” she yelled, swinging her arms blindly, her own switchblade clutched in her small hand.

“Hey!” Joel said, catching her arm. “Hey, it’s me! It’s me, Ellie.”

Ellie stiffened, then all at once, the fight went out of her. The knife tumbled from her hand. “Joel?”

“I’m right here, baby girl.” Carefully, he drew her closer, and she buried her face in his chest.

“He tried to...” Ellie’s voice cracked into a sob as she clutched at him.

“Shh,” Joel murmured. If he held her any closer, he might crack her bones, but he didn’t care. _Thank god, thank god, thank god._ “It’s okay. It’s okay now. I gotcha.”

Behind him, Tess was radioing for back-up.

Ellie suddenly leaned back, her wet eyes wide. “Riley --”

“I’m here,” said a voice somewhere over Joel’s left shoulder. “I’m okay. But, Ellie...”

Joel turned to look at the girl. The entire left side of her shirt was red. Ellie gasped.

“Joel!” she said. Her small fingers touched his stomach, and he hissed; they felt like fire. “Joel, you’re bleeding, oh fuck, oh shit --”

He looked down at the red blossoming all over his shirt, at the pain that he was just now beginning to feel. It looked like someone else’s body, not his, not his, someone else’s ten years ago...

“Tess!” Ellie called as the edges of his vision began to go black. “He got shot! Tess!”

“Are you hurt?” he whispered to Ellie as he began to fall backward. He felt a tug; she was clutching the front of his shirt with all the power she had.

Her eyes were huge.

“Joel! Shit, don’t you die on me, Joel!”

They were the last things he saw before it all went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to our regularly scheduled plot! Thanks again for all of you who have stuck around with this story. The next few chapters are longer, so get pumped. :)
> 
> Also, just a warning that the next chapter will be **late** because I will be traveling Friday through Sunday. So hang in there!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After everything he's been through, Joel reaches clarity on the important things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for waiting! This chapter is full of feels -- you have been warned.

Something was tickling his forehead. Fingers. Cold and slim, stroking his hair away from his skin. 

Soft voices, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. His name? But then it was gone again. Not his name. 

Maybe.

Everything so fuzzy, so dim. 

Cotton. His brain was filled with cotton. Warm and wrapping him safe.

Beeping, low and gentle. Rustling. He strained, but someone shushed him. 

“You’re okay, big guy.”

_Tess._

“Is he...?”

“He’s gonna be fine.”

“Okay.”

_Baby girl, I gotcha._

 

When he opened his eyes, it was dark. To his left, Tess was sleeping in a chair, one of her hands still in his. Her hair fell over her face. When he tried to raise himself up on instinct to push it out of the way, his abdomen screamed, and the needles stuck in his arm pinched. He swore as he eased himself back down.

“Joel?”

To his right, Ellie was curled up in a chair, her knees drawn up to her chest. He had never seen her look so scared.

“Ellie,” he said, his voice a cracked croak.

“Hi,” she said. Her voice was tiny.

He attempted a smile, but his lips were dry and split. He grimaced instead.

“How long was I...?”

“A while,” she whispered, her eyes flicking toward Tess and then back at him. “They had to do some crazy surgery to get the bullet out of you. And then sew you up. Tess thought you were gonna die from the blood loss.” Ellie herself looked especially pale in the light of the single lamp that lit his bedside. “She said you were lucky the bullet didn’t hit any organs. It went clean through.”

“Gonna -- have to try harder -- to get rid of me,” Joel said. Every breath made his body expand and contract, made the wound on his belly move. But he had to let her know he was alright, that he --

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice thick. Dark spots appeared on her jeans.

“Don’t cry,” he said, alarm rising in his chest.

“But -- Joel, I --” She sniffled, still fighting her tears. “If I hadn’t --”

“Shh, baby girl,” he said. He stretched his fingers toward her, and she grasped them tight in her only small ones. “Just glad -- you’re okay.”

Ellie nodded, but she was frowning.

“Not -- goin’ anywhere.” He tried to squeeze her hand, but he was so tired. He lay his head back on the pillow again and drifted back to sleep.

 

When he next woke, cold winter daylight streamed through the large windows of his hospital room. Snow drifted from the bare branches of the tree just outside. Light bent and spun around him, and he felt like he was floating.

_Fuckin’ painkillers_ , he thought faintly.

"Looks like he’s waking up.”

Tess was standing in the corner of the room, near the door, talking to a nurse, who left as Tess hurried over to his bedside.

“Gave me a real scare, Texas,” she murmured, settling on the edge of his bed, taking his hand, and pressing her lips hard against his cheek. Her eyes were dark with concern, the lines around her face deeper than usual.

God, he hated seeing her like that. It was the same expression she’d had when he’d come home piss-drunk after scaring Ellie off, the same one she’d had when they went looking for the girl. The same one she had every time his mind went to dark places she couldn’t follow. The same one she’d had the first night he met her, Sarah dead in his arms.

He was going to make her old before her time with all the shit he’d been pulling, all the shit he’d been pulling for as long as they’d been together.

So many fucking years.

“I love you,” he said, his voice only a little less broken than it had been the night before.

“I love you,” she said, stroking his cheek.

“Marry me,” he murmured.

Tess stared at him. Her hand dropped to his chest.

“Are you high?” she asked.

“Maybe,” he said. He did feel a little dizzy, and every part of him felt muzzy. “Still mean it, though.” There was a line forming between her brows and he wanted to kiss it more than he’d ever wanted anything in his entire life.

“Joel Miller,” Tess said, “are you fucking proposing to me from a hospital bed, in a hospital gown, with no pants on, high on goddamn morphine, and no ring? After ten fucking years? Is that what you’re tellin’ me right now?”

Something tugged at Joel’s gut, and it wasn’t his injury.

“Well when you put it like that,” he mumbled, looking away from her.

Her palm was against his cheek again in a second, pushing his face back toward hers. She kissed him so hard he thought he might fall through the bed, keep falling forever, with this woman in his arms, for the rest of his life.

“Yes,” she whispered fiercely against his lips. “Why would I say anything other than yes, you big idiot?”

He started to say, “A lot of reasons,” but she was kissing him again.

 

Joel had to threaten Tess with getting up out of his hospital bed and driving her to the station to get her to go to work.

“I’m fuckin’ _fine_ , woman,” he insisted. “Ain’t nothin’ for you to be worryin’ about anymore.”

Tess rolled her eyes. “You have a goddamn hole in your gut, you moron. I can get someone to cover me --”

Joel made an exasperated noise. “You only get this antsy when you think you’ve been away too long. You need to go to work.”

“But --”

“The doctor said I’m stable. We’re just waitin’ out my observation time. No reason for you to sit around,” Joel said. “Besides, I got Ellie to hover over me.” He nodded toward the girl, who was standing between Joel’s bed and the door of his room, where Tess was lingering. Ellie had just returned from a coffee run, and the smell of her latte was driving Joel insane.

“You better take good care of him,” Tess said to Ellie, raising her eyebrows.

Ellie saluted her. “I’ve got it under control, ma’am.”

Tess gave him one last look before she nodded and left.

Ellie curled up in the chair on his right-hand side again, sipping at her coffee.

“Ain’t you got school?” Joel asked her.

“Tomorrow’s New Year’s,” she reminded him.

Joel grunted. A silence stretched out between them. Ellie fidgeted with her cup, then spoke.

“So...,” she said. She scrunched herself up smaller. “I guess I kind of owe you an explanation, huh?”

“Might think about givin’ me one, yeah,” Joel said.

Ellie sighed. “I’m in a lot of trouble, aren’t I?”

“Just tell me what _happened_.”

She squirmed. “It’s a long story.”

Joel gestured toward his person, still stuck in a hospital bed. “I got time.”

Ellie snorted, then frowned. “I don’t even know where to start.”

Joel waited.

Ellie sighed again. “So, Christmas night, I got a visitor. Which you probably didn’t know about.”

“Might’ve thought I heard voices,” Joel admitted, “but I wasn’t sure.”

Ellie nodded, fidgeted some more. “That was -- the girl you saw in the park? That’s Riley. She’s -- she and I -- we --” She gnawed on her lip. “It’s complicated.”

Joel raised an eyebrow at her. “Complicated?”

An ugly red flush crept up Ellie’s neck and colored her face. “She’s my -- I mean -- we’re together. Sort of. We were.”

Joel blinked. “Together,” he repeated.

“Yeah,” Ellie mumbled. “You know...like...together.” She linked the fingers of one hand with the other around her cup and looking at him meaningfully, blushing so much that her freckles all but disappeared.

Joel’s mind went black, then snapped to all at once. “Oh,” he said.

“It’s complicated,” Ellie said again, still mumbling.

“I see,” Joel said. His brain felt like it was clogging up and going too fast all at once.

“Does that -- is that --” Ellie swallowed loudly. “I mean. You remember how I told you there were some fosters who didn’t...that gave me back?”

Joel winced at her phrasing. “Yeah, I do,” he said quietly.

Ellie smiled, a bitter little thing. “I had a foster mom who caught me kissing a girl in elementary school. That was that.” Her mouth was a sour line.

Something in Joel ached, even as his anger at this previous foster parent rose in his throat. How could you throw a child away like that? “Oh, baby girl...”

“So it’s not...something I tell people right off the bat.” She looked away from him, playing with her cup lid.

“Ellie.” Joel reached out a hand, which weighed like lead, trying to call her back. “Ellie, look at me.” She did, but it was from out of the corner of her eye. “Ellie, I don’t give a fuck about that shit, alright?” His hand dropped back to the sheets. “It okay, you know? Ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed of. Not with me, not with Tess, not with any other asshole out there. Alright?”

Ellie’s eyes were dark and guarded. “Okay,” she said.

“I _mean_ it,” Joel said. He inched his hand toward her again, and she gently touched her fingertips to his knuckles, like he was a wild animal who would turn around and bite her. He flipped his hand over, palm up, and gripped her fiercely. “I swear,” he said.

“Okay,” she said again, but her voice was stronger this time.

“So Riley snuck into our apartment,” Joel prompted her after a few moments of silence.

“She did,” Ellie said, blushing again. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

Joel shook his head. “Go on.”

“She dropped out of school a few months ago. And then she disappeared.” Ellie stared at her hand, tiny in Joel’s. “No one knew where she’d gone. She was a foster, like me. We met when we were in the group home. Her -- she watched her dad shoot her mom, then himself, when she was in middle school.”

“Jesus,” Joel whispered.

“Yeah. But it wasn’t like anyone knew where she would go when she ran away. But now she’s back and I guess she heard where I’d been placed, and she came to see me. We got into a fight, because, you know, she cares about me, she know what happened to me the last time I was in a foster home, she didn’t want to see me get hurt. And I told her -- you and Tess -- I told her it wasn’t like that this time.” She shuffled on her seat. “But then she kept -- she asked me how much I knew about your guys, and of course I started thinking --” Ellie took a deep breath. “I told her to leave and she did. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what she said, so... Well, you know.”

“I do,” Joel said. “And I owe you an apology for --”

Ellie cut him off by shrugging. “Wasn’t like what I did was right.”

“Ellie --”

“So when you got mad at me, all I could think at the time was that Riley was right,” she pressed on. “That this wasn’t going to work out, either. So I packed my shit up and left and went to find her. And so we went to that park --”

“You’re damn lucky Tess knew about that park,” Joel interrupted her. “If she hadn’t known where all you hooligans hang out --”

“-- and that crazy guy was there,” Ellie continued. The words were spilling out of her now, like she couldn’t stop them if she wanted to. “And then you and Tess came...” She pulled her hand back from his to wrap both her arms around her knees, which she’d drawn up to her chin. “Thank you,” she whispered into her knees.

“For what?”

“No one’s ever cared about me that much before,” she said. “No one except Riley, anyway. Tess had to take her back to CPS, by the way. I think she’s back in the group home for now. Please don’t -- I hope you won’t be mad at her, it was my decision to run away, and I’m sorry, and --”

“Ellie.” Ellie shut her mouth. “I ain’t mad at either of you. But I think I’d like you not to see her any time soon.”

Ellie paled. “But, Joel --”

“Don’t argue with me,” Joel said firmly. “I know you care about this girl, but until we do some -- healin’ --” he glanced meaningfully at his gut -- “I don’t think it’s such a good idea. Okay?”

Ellie looked miserable, but she nodded. “Okay.”

Joel held his hand out to her again. “C’mere.” When she put her hand in his, he tugged so she would sit on the edge of the bed with him. She swung her body around so that she was lying next to him, stiff as a board, hesitant. “You can be a real handful,” he said as he pulled her close, balancing her head on his shoulder, “but I love you, baby girl. I’m keepin’ you, and I’m keepin’ you safe. You understand?”

Ellie nodded as he limbs melted into him, avoiding his abdomen. Joel remembered holding Sarah like this, many years ago, whenever she had nightmares.

“I guess it’s my turn now,” he said into her hair.

“Hmm?”

“I have a story to tell you,” he said.

“You don’t have to --”

“Yeah, I do,” he said. “I shoulda told you weeks ago.”

He took a deep breath, then said, “A long time ago, I had a daughter. Her name was Sarah...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're in the home stretch, but this story isn't quite done yet! Tune in next week for some much-needed fluff.
> 
> I went back and forth forever on Joel's proposal of marriage to Tess. I wasn't sure if including it would be too sappy. But then I figured these two experience more than enough misery in canon, so I might as well give them this happy little alternate universe. Fanfiction is great for indulgences like that. :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Joel recovers at home, he and Ellie work on repairing their relationship.

On Joel’s discharge day, he and Tess spent half an hour arguing about a wheelchair.

“I don’t need it,” Joel insisted. He was hunched on the edge of his hospital bed, breathing hard, having fought a hard-won battle with his pants. His wound felt like a hot knife through his gut.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Tess deadpanned, raising an eyebrow at him. Ellie  sat sitting on the wide windowsill, swinging her legs and stifling giggles.

“I’m _fine_ ,” Joel said, standing up. His body curled itself around his middle without him even thinking about it.

“You’re fine if you want us to carry you home,” Tess said, rolling her eyes. “Stubborn bastard,” she added under her breath. At this, Ellie laughed in earnest.

In the end, Tess managed to stuff Joel in a too-small wheelchair for his trip to the truck. He grumbled the whole way to the parking lot.

If Joel thought he’d hate being treated like an invalid in the hospital, he was even more irritated about it when he got home. He spent his days moving from the bedroom to the bathroom to the couch, his phone often glued to his ear as he checked in on Luis. Ellie and Tess came and went. Joel watched more TV than he had in years. After a week, he was persuaded to borrow one of Ellie’s books, but he gave up after one chapter of _Pride and Prejudice_. Even cooking was too much for him; after Tess burned a pan of chicken breasts in the oven, she ordered a succession of takeout for dinner.

One afternoon during the second week, Joel was fidgeting on the couch, unable to find a comfortable spot. The room was quiet, which was only broken by Ellie flipping pages as she did homework. She hadn’t been much for talking since what had happened in the park, but now, she gave him a lopsided smile.

“You must be going insane,” she said.

“You have no idea,” Joel groaned. “Feel like my brain’s turnin’ to mush.”

“Wanna go outside?”

Joel shook his head. “Nah. If I go down the stairs and rip my stitches open tryin’, Tess’ll kill me.”

“I could read to you.”

“I messed up my stomach, girl, not my eyes. Besides, your books are terrible.”

“They are not!”

“Well, they ain’t for me.” Joel carefully stretched out on the couch, propping his head up on the far armrest so he could look at Ellie. She was giving him a strange look. “What?”

“Would you... I mean...” She frowned.

“Go on.”

“You -- I saw your guitar. When I...” She looked down at her hands, picking absently at a cuticle. “Do you...?”

Joel’s insides went cold. “Oh,” was all he could say.

Ellie turned back to her textbook. “I just -- I don’t know, it was a thought, I guess.” She fiddled with her hair.

“No,” he said, “no, it was a good thought.” He thought back to a smaller girl, a blonde girl, with small hands and big eyes, asking him to play. He sighed. “Would you get it out for me? Probably shouldn’t be diggin’ around in there in my condition.”

Ellie was out of her seat and in his bedroom before he could blink. When she presented the instrument to him, she was hiding her face behind her bangs, uncharacteristically shy.

Joel sat up again and took it from her. The strings were horribly slack. Ellie settled next to him as he tuned, her eyes glued to his hands on the pegs and strumming the strings, testing them.

“So fucking cool,” he heard her whisper, her voice hushed and reverent.

He smiled a little as the instrument came into tune, the wood warm and familiar under his hands. God, he hadn’t realized how much he missed this.

“What should I play?” he asked her.

“Whatever you want,” Ellie said. “What’s your favorite song?”

“Not sure I have a favorite,” Joel admitted. He paused for a moment, thinking, before he began:

_“We met in the springtime_   
_When blossoms unfold,_   
_The pastures were green_   
_And the meadows were gold...”_

Her eyes were huge, riveted as he played. He couldn’t help but smile, add a little more flair to his performance as he saw her reaction. It felt good to be playing again. It felt good to be playing for someone else again.

As he finished, he heard Ellie let out a breath.

“Wow,” she said.

“Like it?” he asked. He felt warmth creeping into his face. He held the guitar in front of him like a shield.

“Yeah,” she said, grinning. “You’re really, really good.”

“Thanks,“ he said, fiddling with the pegs again.

“Like, really really good,” Ellie insisted.

“Some people thought so, back in the day,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I used to...” He grimaced.

“What?”

“I used to want to be...a singer,” he said slowly. “A long time ago.”

“You would have been famous,” she chirped. “Will you play me another?”

“Maybe later,” he said. “Gotta finish your homework.”

“Aw, c’mon!”

Joel nodded at her forgotten books. “Go on. If you finish soon, I’ll teach you a little.”

Ellie gasped. “Really?”

“Homework, Ellie. Now.”

“ _Fine_.”

 

Ellie’s afternoon guitar lessons gave them both something to look forward to, even if the girl’s tuneless strumming drove Tess crazy on the days she was home.

“You sure you can’t just stuff that thing back in the closet?” Tess groaned at one point.

“No way,” Ellie said, clutching the guitar to her chest.

On the day before Joel was to go to the hospital to get his stitches out, he was picking a tune out while he waiting for Ellie to finish her homework.

“That’s nice,” Ellie said, shaking him from his thoughts.

“Hm?”

“Whatever you’re playing. I’ve never heard it before.”

Joel blushed. “That’s because I wrote it.”

Ellie stared at him. “No way.”

“Been workin’ on it a long time,” Joel said. “It’s never been ready.”

“Is it now?”

He shrugged. “Might be. Dunno.”

“Can I hear it?”

“You know the rules.”

Ellie raced through the rest of her geometry problems before flying over to sit at his feet.

“Okay,” Joel murmured to himself, taking a deep breath.

“Are you nervous?” Ellie asked, her tone dripping with disbelief.

He shushed her. “You gonna make fun of me or listen?”

Ellie shut up.

Joel picked at his guitar for a few more moments before he began:

_“If I ever were to lose you,_   
_I’d surely lose myself._   
_Everything that I have found dear_   
_I’ve not found by myself...”_

Ellie was silent after he finished. He raised his eyebrows at her.

“What?” he asked.

She leaned back against his legs, looking at up at him upside-down.

“You miss her all the time, don’t you?” she said.

Joel closed his eyes. “I do.”

“I can’t imagine losing someone you love like that,” she murmured. “I’m sorry, Joel.”

“It’s hard,” he admitted. “It’s still hard. But I got you and Tess now. It’s okay, Ellie.”

She lay her cheek on his knee, and they sat like that for a long time.

Finally, Joel said, “Tess mighta already told you, but...”

“What?” Ellie sat up straighter, turning to look at him.

He scratched at the back of his neck. “She really oughta be here when I tell you,” he said.

“ _Please_ , Joel?” she begged, pouting. “I’ll act all surprised when she tells me, I promise!”

Joel fought with himself for only a moment before he said, “I asked Tess to marry me.”

In an instant, Ellie was a flurry of motion. She hopping up on the couch next to him and practically climbed into his lap as she jabbered at him: “Wait, what? Really? Seriously? When did you ask her? When’s the wedding? Did you get her a ring? Can I come? Are you gonna buy a house now?”

“Slow down, kiddo,” Joel said, laughing.

Ellie’s face was split by a wide grin, the first he’d seen on her since the incident at the park. But then her expression fell.

“I have something to tell you, too,” she said, looking down at her lap.

“What is it, baby girl?” he asked. “You in trouble?”

“Not...exactly,” she said. “I’ve been... Riley’s been around.”

“Hmph.”

“She’s still kind of pissed at me, and I know she didn’t make the best first impression --”

“That’s an understatement,” Joel muttered.

“-- but she’s not a bad person,” Ellie insisted. “She’s been working. She’s going to join the army when she’s old enough. And -- she’s going to be around, Joel. And I want her to be.” She bit her lip.

“You really like this girl, don’t you?” Joel asked.

“She’s important to me,” Ellie said, wringing her hands. “When we were in that group home... She was all I had. And I was all she had.”

Joel watched the uncertainty, the hope, the hurt pass across her face. He knew that terrible mixture of feelings. He ran his hand through his beard, thinking of Tess, and sighed.

“Does she have time to come to dinner on Saturday?” he finally asked.

He winced when Ellie tackled him in a ferocious hug, but he held her tight all the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be the last! Thanks for sticking around. :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joel, Ellie, and Tess tie up loose ends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's time. Here's the final chapter of "Home Is Not Places."
> 
> Also, fair warning for my wonderful Rellie fans: I've never written Riley, let alone Rellie, and I've only played _Left Behind_ once, so I'm very sorry if Riley is terribly out of character here. I did my best, considering the AU setting and my perceptions of Riley's personality.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

On late Saturday afternoon, Ellie paced the living room, doing a circuit around the couch.

“You’re gonna wear a damn hole in the floor if you don’t cut it out,” Joel called to her from the kitchen, trying to keep the amusement out of his voice. He scratched idly at his abdomen, where his stitches had been. Tess swatted at his hand to make him stop.

“Speaking of cutting things out,” she muttered, giving him a pointed look.

He snorted and continued sauteing the collard greens.

Riley arrived ten minutes before six. She rapped sharply on the door, and Ellie nearly fell over herself in her rush to answer it. By this time, Joel was setting heaping serving plates of food on the dinner table. He watched Ellie, her hair disheveled and her face flushed, as she greeted the older girl.

“Hi,” Ellie said, her voice strangled.

“Hi,” Riley said, raising an eyebrow at her. She looked past Ellie to Joel and Tess. “Hello, Mr. Miller. Hello, Officer Callahan.”

Tess winced. “Just call us Joel and Tess,” she said.

“Thank you for having me over,” Riley continued. Her face was unreadable. Ellie took her coat.

The girls settled themselves at the table, Ellie bouncing nervously in her seat, her teeth grinding on her lower lip, as Riley sat perfectly still, folding her hands in her lap. Joel reached for her plate, and she handed it over crisply. He served her, then Ellie, then Tess in silence.

The quiet thickened and grew as they began to eat. Ellie poked at her food. Joel cleared his throat.

“So, uh,” he began. His voice sounded even louder than usual to his ears. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Riley. Ellie tells me you’ve been workin’?”

Riley nodded. “Just some part-time things. Target, the supermarket, the mall. I run the registers.”

“Hmm,” Joel said. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of Riley handling all that money, but he didn’t say so, and he wasn’t the one running all those stores, anyway. Instead, he said, “I probably started workin’ when I was your age.”

“You did?” Ellie asked. He heard the heel of her foot banging against her chair leg repeatedly, rhythmically. He wished she wouldn’t do that; she’d have an awful bruise later.

“Mostly mendin’ fences,” Joel said. “Helped that I had experience when I started lookin’ for construction jobs.”

Ellie’s eyes flickered with curiosity, but instead of asking more questions, as she usually did, she ducked her head back down and continued prodding her food without eating it. Every few seconds, she cut sideways glances at Riley, who wasn’t looking at her, but was cutting her food into polite-sized pieces.

They lapsed into silence again. Joel racked his brain for anything to talk about. He could almost feel the heat coming off Tess; he knew she was doing the same.

“The group home is a group home,” Riley said suddenly. Everyone stared at her. “It’s the same as it always was. If that’s what you’re trying to decide you should ask about.”

Ellie’s cutlery lay untouched on her plate now as she looked at her friend, eyes wide.

“Now, we didn’t --” Joel began.

At the same time, Tess said, “That wasn’t -”

They both stopped and looked at each other. Tess looked as helpless as Joel felt.

Riley put her fork and knife down, too, and looked from Joel to Tess, her expression still held in a placid expression.

“Mr. Miller, Officer,” she began, and Tess grimaced, “I don’t want to beat around the bush. I know you told Ellie not to see me.”

“Riley!” Ellie said sharply.

Riley continued on. Some part of Joel admired her guts, but a larger part of him knew it was all he could do to keep his jaw from hanging open at the nerve of this girl.

“And I just wanted to say, I understand why,” Riley said. “I’m sorry about what happened, and I’m sorry Mr. Miller got hurt so bad. But I never meant -- I really care about Ellie. And you guys care about her, too. You wouldn’t have invited me otherwise. So just -- thank you.” She looked down at her lap. “For having me over. For trying to understand. Ellie’s been trying to tell me for a while that --” She paused, seemed to be mulling something over in her head. “I’m sure she’s told you how bad it can be, when you’re in a situation like us. I was worried about her. I shouldn’t have been.”

She looked up at them again now, her eerily even expression replaced by something shy, vulnerable. Something more suitable for a sixteen-year-old girl. Joel sighed inwardly. No kid should have to be so guarded.

“We appreciate that,” he said, nodding to her.

“I’m sorry about the group home,” Tess murmured, frowning. “Even I have to follow the rules. They don’t give me much of a choice.”

“I know,” Riley said.

They ate the rest of the meal without talking. The tension was still thick as smoke, but even that was better than what they’d started with.

When Joel finished his food and stood, Ellie turned to Riley and opened her mouth, but he cut her off.

“Riley, would you help me with the dishes?” he asked her.

“Of course,” Riley said, standing and collecting plates.

In the kitchen, she stacked them next to the sink. Joel handed her a rag, and he scrubbed everything down before handing it to her to dry.

“You really love Ellie,” he said.

It wasn’t a question, but she said, “I do.” Then she smiled faintly and added, “You guys do, too.”

“We do,” Joel agreed. “I’m not gonna pretend I know how it goes for foster kids. That ain’t my right. But I know what it’s like to be young, and...” 

He chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment, thinking of Stacey and her long, golden hair -- in his face as she rode him that night in his car, the cascade of it flowing down her back when she left for the last time.

Joel sighed.

“I don’t want her to get hurt, you understand?” he finally said. “We’re not gonna hurt her, and we don’t want anyone else to, either.” He licked his lips, searching for the right words. “I know what you are to each other.”

“Mr. Miller --”

He shook his head. “Only thing that bothers me is that maybe you ain’t serious about it. Ellie -- you know this already -- Ellie loves with everythin’ she’s got. Everythin’. And she loves you. Don’t disrespect that.”

“I don’t try to,” Riley said.

“Don’t just try,” Joel said. “Just don’t. Don’t yank her around. Long as you can handle that, then we’re square. Alright?”

“Alright,” Riley said.

“And please,” Joel said, “don’t you dare ever tell her again that we don’t care about her.” He looked the girl dead in the eye.

She didn’t flinch. “I made a mistake,” Riley said. “I know that now.”

“Good,” Joel said.

After a moment, Riley said, “How’re you healing up?”

“Been worse,” Joel said, harsher than he meant. He gave her a small smile. “Trust me, it’s a lot harder to get rid of me than that.”

Riley returned his smile cautiously. “I’ll remember that.”

Riley and Ellie sat on her bed, talking in low voices -- with the door _open_ , per Joel’s request -- for an hour longer.

At eight, Riley said, “Better head back. Curfew’s soon. Thank you for dinner, Mr. Miller, Officer.”

“For the love of god,” Joel said, holding Riley’s coat out to her, “if we’re gonna be seein’ more of you, please just call us Joel and Tess.”

After Riley left, Ellie hovered in the doorway of her bedroom. “ _Am_ I gonna be seeing more of her?” she asked.

“That’s up to you,” Joel said.

“But...”

Joel looked at Tess. Her eyes were a book only he could read. She nodded.

“Tess and I figure there’s no harm in you seein’ her, since you’re not gonna listen to us tell you not to, anyways,” he said. Ellie opened her mouth to protest, but he said, “It’s gotta be on our terms, though. It’s gotta be here. Think you can do that?”

“Yeah,” Ellie said, grinning now. “Thank you.”

“Thank Tess,” Joel said, nodding toward her. “She’s the one who softens me up.”

 

A few hours later, Tess went into the bathroom to wash up before bed. Joel was sitting on the couch, watching TV without paying attention. Ellie was perched next to him, reading.

“Hey, Joel?” Ellie said.

“Hm?”

“I got something for you.”

“What?”

But before the word was fully out of his mouth, Ellie had dashed into her room. She came back just as quickly, holding something out for him.

He took it gingerly. It was a picture frame. In it was the photo of him and Sarah on the day of her championship soccer game. His breath caught in his throat, his heart beating faster. He ran his thick fingers over the simple wooden frame, the round face of his girl at twelve years old.

God, it had been such a long time.

“I didn’t get you a Christmas present,” Ellie said, by way of explanation. “And um. I figured you wouldn’t notice if I took this picture for a little while. When I was looking for the frame. Tess said it would probably be okay.”

Joel just stared at the picture. When he looked up at her, she was standing before him, nibbling on her nails.

“Thank you, baby girl,” he said. He held his arm out, and she stepped in to hug him.

He crushed her cheek to his to steady himself, to find an anchor against the tears that threatened to spill over. He took a deep breath. His world was in his arms again, but this time, it was alive and breathing.

It was a feeling, he was surprised to find, he could get used to.

 

Joel Miller had never considered himself a very lucky man. But when he got into bed that night, he spooned his body around Tess and listened to her breathing slow and even out before she drifted off to sleep. In the room down the hall, he knew Ellie was doing the same. On his bedside table was the framed picture, Sarah smiling up into the room. He buried his nose in Tess’s hair and chuckled to himself.

His life. His home. _His girls._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long and wonderful ride! Thank you to all of you who have stuck with this story, given me kudos, bookmarked it before it was even done, and especially those who left comments. Special shout-out to Nora, who left a comment on almost every chapter!
> 
> Thanks also to my poor fiance, who has handled my complete obsession with TLOU like a champ.
> 
> I considered wrapping up this story with Joel and Tess adopting Ellie, and maybe Joel and Tess's wedding, but I decided that wasn't quite the point of the story -- by the end of this version, they all come to a place where they feel like a family, and all of them feel understood and loved. And that's what home is, isn't it?
> 
> I'm not sure where I will go next with my fanfiction writing, other than that I will finish ["Survivors"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6052228) and post a one-shot I've been sitting on for a little while. But it might be time for me to take a break and get back to working on some of my original stuff. If you have any requests for works either in this AU or anything else, though, please leave me a note here or on [Tumblr](http://cansofpeaches.tumblr.com/). :)
> 
> And finally, in case you've never heard the song that inspired this whole story, please give it a listen!


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